A Very Anxious Feeling: Voices of Unrest in the American Experience - Catalog - Page 33
encounter of the human condition. My objects are alive, yet
have no death. Life force pervades their insides, cosmological
mysteries are embodied within, the invisible physical forces of
the universe, such as gravity, relativity, space, and time are all
manifested outwards into their surrounding environment, and
Life itself is laid bare for all to see.
Gisela Colón, Untitled (Monolith Black), 2016, blow-molded acrylic
Through my artistic voice, I have sought to create a world that
engages all people democratically and provides a transcendent
view of the future. Ironically, creating art through the veil of the
most patriarchal bastion of western art—minimalism—has
allowed me to dismantle the rigid notions of its structural past,
and scale the ivory tower of its intellectual hegemony. In a
postcolonial paradox, the daughter of a colony has decolonized,
deconstructed, and re-contextualized this conventional canon,
forging a realm of new possibilities and universal perspectives.
Through the lens of the Caribbean diaspora, I posit my work as a
vehicle for bringing our voices together, by providing access to
the vastness and breadth of human experience. I have a vision of
equality and interconnectedness through subjective human
feeling. All you need is a set of eyes and an open heart to
partake in the forces of the universe. You don’t need to have
read Donald Judd’s “Specific Objects” essay, or Robert Irwin’s
manifesto on perceptualism, to comprehend what is before
you—it can be understood not through your mind, but through
your soul. The experience of raw, unadulterated, energy transfer
can be felt through the senses of your body in a shared
The work in this exhibition, Untitled (Monolith Black), 2016,
is the very first work from my Monolith series. The Monoliths
are meant to convey evidence of equality, power, beauty,
and strength. They come from a place of female power, from
a desire to usurp masculine energy and convert it to female
strength. By appropriating classic masculine forms and
symbols (the phallus, bullets, missiles, projectiles, rockets)
and rendering them into aesthetically ambiguous, desirable
objects, the Monolith sculptures subvert the traditionally
aggressive and destructive references of these objects. Their
negative meanings are transmuted into positive energies that
address phenomenology and the universal concern of human
relationships with the Earth.
The singular monolithic form is reminiscent of the mystery
conveyed by ancient cultural artifacts (totems), archeological
treasures (Stonehenge), and early civilization architectures
(pyramids) from past eras when humans seemed to possess a
deeper connection to the intangible world around them. This
sense of primitive intuition and biological knowledge becomes
even more pronounced when coupled with futuristic properties
of the modern era. By imbuing the monoliths with space-age
qualities such as refractive surfaces, parabolic curvatures, and
high-tech optical construction, their sense of mystery, awe,
and wonder is heightened. Through the harmonious merger of
ancient and futuristic qualities, the Monoliths reference our
cosmological origins and desire to reach the stars again.
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